Friday, 8 April 2011

Our film would attract mostly the male audience although it may appeal to females awell.The film is mainly to be watched by people in College and Universtity students because their are more likely to get the plots. This is the best audience to target our film at because they are up-to-date with some of the current technology used in the film. Students are also more likey to go out to the cinema and watch the film with there friends so we'd get a larger profit by aiming it at them.

Looking at it from a different perspective quite a few women would want to go see it because of attraction to the male character.
Because it is a pycological thriller many older people around the ages of 30 would like to watch it because it gives them a film they could enjoy better compared to a film like 'Legally Blonde' or 'Twilight'

All these exercises we were set to do all helped with the progression of our real thriller opening, as we at the beginning never had enough shots, and for our real thriller we had so many that we couldn’t choose. Furthermore, as the lessons carried on we all understood the programming a lot more making it easier for us to edit and create effects on LiveType and Sound Track Pro. I enjoyed producing this thriller opening, and I hope you enjoy watching it.

Thursday, 7 April 2011

The reason why I have chosen the two still from the character from the movie "Stepfather" is because this is the film that inspired us, mainly due to the great use of props and shots which allowed the first impression on the audience to be very bold. The mirror shots connote identity or who they really are, or not sure who they are which would puzzle the audience instantly getting them interested. The reason why I chose Stepfather is because it's great at presenting that sense of normality and then suddenly shocking the audience in something the wouldn't expect. Though our thriller may not have showed any sense of disturbances in what the character is really doing or somethings wrong, we save the tension to build up for longer as I thought after watching the first few scenes of Stepfather that I would make the suspense endure on the audience to get a larger shock.

Some differences that our thriller uses from the introduction to DEXTER is that our title comes in slightly later, however we present our character much faster and the full image of the face and that allows to build suspense and allows the audience to help build a character on what kind of person he is.

In the 2nd shot of DEXTER, his looking in the mirror, similarly we have done that on our first, DEXTER 3rd shot compared to our 2nd shot is a bathroom scene which allows a sense of normality to these characters as they do ordinary things thought this still builds tension.

By Dexter's 4th shot, We have our title which then follows onto our title being showed again on a disc on the 5th shot. And Dexter's title is showed once at the beginning that's all, we kept reminding our audience of the name of the film giving a great stress and importance on the name "I.C.U"

Most of these shots, allows to build tension whilst conveying a sense of normality and all these shots give a sense of personality of what kind of person these people are. Dexter is seen to be a very clean and organised and healthy person, as where our character is seen to be scruffy, stressed and this is presented by the mise en scene (such as smoking) and drinking tea and so on gives a sense of an adult life.

These are some of the ways on how our film develops and challenges forms and convention of real media productions.

The most useful way of distributing out film was through the Internet, the Internet allowed us to share our video on Youtube and Facebook one of which is the largest socialising network right now allowing our film to be viewed by the masses, this also allows the thriller film to gain new audiences as Facebook has a large amount of young and middle ages people which can broadening the target audience and resulting in more views. When posting on Youtube we are exposing our film to other thriller lovers, as one thriller film will be recommended on the list beside the clip they are watching since it is similar this is another way we can gain more hits.

As the image above shows this was a previous students work, this has 19,715 views the reason why they have so many views is because they could have been promoting this through various social networks, and each time someone watches it, it adds a count on the Youtube hits.

How I plan to distribute my thriller film is the 200 DVD releases and the use of Youtube using Vimeo as well because it's a low budget film. When promoting my film I would have the film presented on something or somewhere, where my target audience would be. Mine would be an average male of the age of 20. I would have the thriller film in gym brochures info packs, on what extra activities they can do, or car magazines and mainly magazines which have women, as that will get the male target audiences attention this could be done by applying a picture on the "Sun" or so on.

The type of audience that my thriller film would attract is the male sector, including female friends, from personal experience thriller films are watched by many couples as well, this is a very good audience to target my film at.
The type of male I would be targeting at, is the age of 20 with money to go out and spend with a part time or full time job going uni or well managed with money and still wants to go out and have a finer taste in life. The males that would be going to see this film will be quite stylish and up to date, obviously due to their date. The male audience will be very concious about physical appearance so gym is a must!

As a group we have made a lot progress during the duration of this project. I'm going to compare the the first little film we did with our final thriller to go through where we have improved.

CAMERA WORK

The 'Prelim' was our first film and compared to our final thriller it seemed pretty low budget.

The camera work for the prelim seemed alright at the time but when we analyzed it the angle was uneven and looked unprofessional. We didn't use as much of a variety of shots as we did for the Thriller which means we didn't get as many match cuts as we would of liked whereas with the Thriller we had so many match cuts we had to cut quite a few out.

The Prelim didn't really portray the story as much as we would of liked it to because o0f the lack of angles and shot but the Thriller managed to tell quite a lot in 2 minutes and the shots proved effective.

The lighting in the Thriller seemed to be more effective because it kind of showed that it was the morning time whereas the lighting for the Prelim was quite dark although it was meant to be in the middle of the day.

MISE EN SCENE

The props for the Thriller we almost perfect for the film and worked very effectively especially the cigarette which proved very effective when the main character put it out making it seem like the video sent to him made him stressed. The kettle and cup of tea also set the scene making it looking he was having his morning brew even though in reality it was around 1 o'clock. For the prelim we did not have the right amount of props to set the scene and had to make due with what we could get which was very poor and I consider the Thriller a major improvement compared to the Prelim.

The location for the Prelim was inappropriate because we did not plan it properly so there was not much we could do but film inside a room in the college. This is what caused the poor lighting and bad scenery. The Thriller completely contrasts this because of the great house we got to use for the filming and the weather that day with cause the lighting indoors to be great.

EDITING

The editing for the Prelim wasn't exactly terrible the there were less cuts and more dissolves and fades because of the lack of shots we had. The editing for the Thriller was done to the best of my ability so far and the cuts worked better than expected because of the amount of match cuts we had.

PLANNING & TEAM WORK

The main reason why our Thriller was so much better than out prelim was because we had the time to plan and get what was needed ready for the day that we were going to film whereas for the prelim we had a shorter amount of time to plan and so we produced a less than great piece of work.

As the project went on it we became more comfortable with all the software and equipment and this made us develop better films and instead. of me doing all of the editing everybody started to get involved

Last blog that is going to be made this year J Ahh what a long journey it has been , but this very last blog , is going to be the progress in which I have made , from the very first opening that we approached. So i am basically going to compare the first opening preliminary task to the very last actuarial thriller that we made.

So, the prelim, this was our first film and now that I have made my thriller, the prelim, seems very badly made and low budgeted, the camera work for our prelim, seemed excellent at the time, which was understandable because we were new to the editing and sound, however now that I have made my thriller, I can see that the angle shots very badly recorded as well as it seemed very unprofessional. The image that I am using is a long shot, as you can see that this shot was not very well done, you can see that the angle used wasn’t completely straight I think this was because we never used a tripod, this caused the angle of the shot, to put us in a disadvantage because it didn’t follow through smoothly. However, with the prelim it allowed us to practice using different shots, it also helped us understand the importance of different shots, we realised that our camera work was a fail because we tended to use constant fades to make it look as smooth as possible. In our prelim the story line was not easily assessable; it was quite hard to understand, I think this was because of the lack of coordination as well as angles and shots.

So in our final film , we decided we had to work on our mistakes , we made sure we used a tripod for every single shot , it was time consuming but made a very big difference to the shots. The way we done this was we made sure we followed a variety of shots, from older the shoulder close up long shots point of view Est. In addition, because we didn’t use many shots in our prelim we made sure we included them, the funny thing is we had too many much cuts in our thriller that we had to cut down on them. More over another problem with our prelim was the lighting it was very poorly used, the lighting had a big effect towards our prelim it made it look like it was dark even though it was set in the morning, however in our thriller, we made sure that the lightning wasn’t getting in the way we used it in the most effective way possible and watched it through before we left Kerens house.

PROPS

So the props used for the thriller, was excellent, I will say we used the right types of props in inherence the understanding of our thriller. For example the cigarette was very effective, as it showed that the character was stressed. Also the alcohol at the back ground, showing the audience that he is a drinker as well as giving the sign that thing’s must be on his mind....

I would say overall prop use in I.C.U was used very effectively almost the whole 2 minute thriller was to do with the importance of props. For example the main prop was the disk that was an indication showing that he is getting watched. However in our Prelim we had hardly any props, we had nothing, and our prelim indicated hardly anything. I say from our prelim we had made a MASSIVE improvement when it comes to PROPS. The location of our prelim was in college this gave a very UN serious tone towards or prelim it seemed like it was a very low budgeted film, it did not look professional at all. This caused the poor lighting and the bad scenery. However we were very blessed when it came to the location as the location used was in a house and the weather alone that day was great so he reflected the light over. Also the costume that the individuals where wearing in our prelim did not take the story line seriously it made it seem like effective and UN serious. However in our actual thriller , the costumes where planned well, the man posting the letter wear a suit indicating that it is sent from a serious person and the main character faysal , in the beginning wear boxers to show that he got out of bed and demonstrating the normal norm.

EDITING

The editing for our prelim wasn’t the worst but it was bad compared to our thriller , we learnt different ways of using final cut pro as well as we were getting familiar with live type and soundtrack pro. We had less cuts in our prelim and more dissolves and fades because of the amount of shots we used. I would say when it came to the editing of our thriller, we tried to do the best we can do, the editing I would say was a big improvement from the prelim it came out much more smoothly the sound the titles came out more effectively. Aldo the main improvement I believe the sound, in our prelim was very poorly however in our thriller, we made sure we picked a suspenseful sound so it can contract the best of its ability when it comes to our thriller.

TEAM WORK The teamwork in our prilim was ok , but it wasent the best as it could be i think this was becuase we dident really no each over that well,but over the weeks we got more conftable with each over and it made it easy for us to giv our opinion on things. whilst editing we all took turns and contributed on things. however in our prilim it was really one person doing the editing and the otehr perion dealing with the camera ect. but we over came that and contributed.

When getting audience feedback , we saw that many people saw a big improvemnt from the to filmingwe done , they saw that we took on board our mistakes and over camethem onour thriller. i think this was done by communication between our peers and teachers. Also the sue of technology allowed us to make this thriller, at the start of making our prilim we did not no anything about edditing we where struggling and finding the programe new , but over the weeks we improved astonishingly we leant how to use live type and sound. in our prilim we used final cut pro for our titles now we used live type and found better and more profesional.

I decided to research other people who had posted up their thrillers in order to see what kind of feedback they recieved and i was suprised to see how many views and comments they had recieved. By posting up the video on Youtube or Vimeo I would be able to post it on Facebook, Blogger, Twitter and many other social networking site where i could recieve feedback from friends and they could also advertise it on their pages aswell.

A small cinema will also view everybodys thrillers where afterwards i could also grab some feedback from the others and see what they had to say about it.

Our film will also be put on 200 dvds which means i will be able to show the thriller to family and friends aswell.

Advertising - I will post the thriller on facebook and see what feedback i can get from my friends and they can also tell me what i could improve on aswelll.

The imagine above was a long shot, however the problem with this was that the angle that we shot it wasn't completely straight and the the angle of the shot didn't allow us to follow another smooth shot which helped establish the next shot. With this prelim it allowed us to practice with various styles of shots, after realising, using constant fades and then bringing it back into the scene into the exact same spot to carry on was a difficult process and didn't come out as smooth as we wanted it to be.

So in final film we decided to work on our previous mistakes, we used a tripod and made the shot as steady and focused as possible, unlike the prelim which was very blurry. The way we constructed this shot was so it could follow onto a variety of shots from over the shoulder, close up or point of view. This gave us a range of shots to use, and gave us the choice as editors to pick which clip would allow us to present as much suspense within our film. We advanced our editing skills, and instead of using many fades to make it difficult to set up the next shot, we had extremely fast and sharp match-cuts to make it high paces and give a sense of rhythm which the prelim didn't not have.

Also another problem with our prelim, was the lighting it was very poorly lit and the shots where very unstable as it was shaking disrupting the flow of the film as well as the professionalism of it. However since it was our first proper try we had and we have time to improve over time.

In our thriller opening, we then took our previous problems such as lighting problems and the shots not being steady, to it being very well light, by allowing natural light to enter the scene, use a tripod and use a smooth pan to allow a sense of professionalism and less disruption of the flow of the film. This is what we improved on from out prelim which was our main problem and we improved greatly.

Monday, 4 April 2011

Having looked onto youtube at other peoples media thrillers from different schools I have come across many successful ones, with amazingly outstanding number of hits. My film is a low budget student video which will be released on vimeo, embedded onto a blog, facebook, youtube, and be tweeted about on twitter, recieving hits from many people around the world.

Our thriller is an independent low budget production company, i.e: us. It will get cinematic screening and shared screenings amongst peers and maybe family. It'll get a DVD release of 200 copies.

Cinema we will view everyones thriller movies on the 5th of April, is below at 'the screen.'

Other cinemas at which our thriller can be presented in:

Marketing Campaigne

I have thought about a particular style of marketing for our thriller, aswell as using social networking sites, sharing it between the world of friends and family, hoping for it to go world wide using the internet distribution of websites, youtube and vimeo. I thought that as our thriller is directed more towards the male audience, not only do men watch TV adverts, read leaflets and magazines that all contribute to raise awarness to our thriller release. TV adverts would help raise awarness to our thriller, as we can place it between football matches which mostly will attract the attention of males that our physiological thriller is about to be released, helping the box office numbers to rise, after the first day of release, what we hope is for the most effective way of advertisement, word of mouth to also help raise popularity of the viewing of our thriller. premiere, film, empire, similarly TV adverts, adverts before highly rated youtube videos and adverts on the side of facebook all can boost ratings.

This is because we have male actors which is more interesting rather than the obvious a woman being "blackmailed". Using male actors will attract more male audiences, with the technology, this will draw in more of the younger generation and also because men begin the film. The typical target audience for our thriller is mostly males but with a wide range of ages, from 17 to 40.

Looking from a different point of view, I believe that women similar aged (17 - 40) would be interested in how good looking / sexy the men look, so this would also draw in the female audience. I did not want the women to follow the stereotype of being seen as weak and vulnerable so they had to play the role of someone filming them in their own house, and they get scared and call for help or something. I wanted an original clip that would interest all types of people from different age groups, with men going against their stereotype of being strong and not scared of anything, this would make the men even more interested to watch the film and be interested to see what happens further on in the film.
The type of audience we are trying to attract according to our thriller opening could be normal working/middle class men, that have a job, work 9:00am - 5:00pm, who likes taking their girlfriend to the movies once in a while, and are interested in physiological thrillers. As 'The Stepfather' is our inspiration it'll attract that type of audience, but our sceond half of the male in the living room using the laptop after picking up a package could attract everyone, so no one specific, as everyone uses technology and recieves letters everyday.

I have created a typical audience member for our thriller movie, I have included pictures of this target audience and looked into depth of what type of person he is, this will give us a clear idea of who our thriller target audience is.

This is Huu Diep, he is 21 years old, studies at Queen Mary University, studying Finance, love spending time with his friends, going out to the cinema, but also very hard working and determined as a person who is working towards their future. He likes to shop at Topshop, Size?, JD Sports Fashion and River Island. Although he studies, he also works part time at JD Sports, he is very active, enjoys his weekends playing football as his hobby, also he likes to stay looking good for the ladies, always up to date with fashion and also smelling good, he has a collection of colognes. His favourite types of movies are thrillers, horrors and crime, his all time favourite film is The Stepfather.

In his bag:

- Lanyard (For Work)

- Blackberry & Case

- iTouch, Headphones (Dr,Dre Beats)

- Cologne (Chanel Bleu)

- Body Spray

- Wallet; Oyster Card, Nando’s stamp card, Subways Card

- Car Keys (Drives a Civic Type R)

- House Keys

He makes sure he smell fresh all the time with his favourite cologne.

His Civic Type R that he loves speeding down the motorway with.

After looking at my typical target audience it is obvious he enjoy's his free time, spending it on things he likes, after watching our thriller he said: "I want to carry on watching that movie, it looks really interesting, im sure my girlfriend would like it too as she would be looking out for the good looking men in the film. *he laughs*." I also noticed his favourite film was " The Stepfather " this may be the reason why he enjoyed our opening, as we have many intertexuality shots.

Thursday, 31 March 2011

This a video from someone who made a thriller for their media coursework quite some years ago which means it was quite a while ago and yet they got great feedback even without the many ways of distributing and advertising it we have now these days i.e. facebook and twitter.

By posting the video on Youtube the person who made this film was able to get both good and bad feedback from viewers quite simply. The video also gets watched and shared around so the amount of people who watch the video hit a high number which means you can get more feedback.

The internet has allowed us to distribute our thriller to a wider audience; this I think will help us understand who our actuarial audience is. In the beginning we believed that our audience is based upon teenagers, but let’s see after we distribute it on the internet. Already our thriller will be getting a cinematic screening amongst our fellow thriller makers. This will help us see what our fellow peers think about I.C.U , after the cinematic show this will allow me to ask my fellow peers if they would pay £8.oo to watch this thriller. It will also be released on 200 copies, allowing other members out of the age group to see it also. My main aim is to show my thriller too many different age groups to see which ones it aims towards the most. The internet such as you tube videos will allow many different age groups to see our thriller , especially face book , because it has many different age groups on that social network. This thriller done by students called GENESIS has got many hits as well comments, this is defiantly a way of which we will be following. The views on this thriller are a massive 19,715 which shows that their distribution through you tube has helped their thriller get watched. Also By posting this link on face book so that face bookers can click on the link and watch it on you tube this will get more viewers also as it advertises it, also as it is a low budget student video , it will also be released on vimeo as it has an inderpendednt low budget production company.

These are the diffrent places where our thriller can be distributed at

Also in order to promote , we would promote our film with no cost on newspapers like METRO , becuase they are very commen newspapers.

I would also consider advertising it on leaflets , magazines bus stops and Tv adverts because both men and women watch tv adverts.We would also think of some potential sponsers , i suggested Tv adverts such as neghbours or home and away as they are well known watch Tv series , this is a part of a particular style of marketing for our thriller.

Tuesday, 29 March 2011

I chose to look at a film called stepfather , this was a thriller that inspired us the most , we as a class all watched this thriller , we indicated that from the opening sequence the man is doing his normal daily routines , but however he seems to see dead body’s but still carried on as normal. From the opening sequence there is only a man introduced this indicated that he is the main character, the man in this thriller gives out a very normal imagine of himself, this is only the first half of the opening. Likewise in I.C.U the same principle is applied, the main male character is doing his daily routines, but the weary music behind it gives a sense that something is happening, The similarities are that the personality and character these males bring out both in Stepfather and ICU is similar both give out a normal image of them self, but however something is going on. However, the difference is that the situation is different, in stepfather he sees dead body’s but in ICU he is getting recorded seems like he is getting followed.